MSF Gaza: Flash quotes on violent aid distribution incidents near Zikim

01 August 2025 - Flash quote from Caroline Willemen, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Project Coordinator in Gaza:

"On 30 July, as people approached trucks distributing aid near Zikim, in north Gaza, Israeli forces opened fire on them. People were wounded in the gunfire and in the crush as crowds panicked and ran. Medical staff at the MSF-supported Sheikh Radwan clinic in north Gaza treated 77 injured patients and received eight people dead on arrival. Across north Gaza, nearly 600 people were treated for similar injuries following violence and chaos near Zikim that night, according to the Ministry of Health, as food trucks were passing.

These deadly incidents have become a daily reality in Gaza for too long now. The current methods of distribution are engineering chaos and massacres. Food remains critically scarce, and there is little indication that sufficient aid will arrive consistently. As a result, every day, people risk their lives in a desperate search for food.”

Testimony from a patient treated at the MSF-supported short stay unit next to our Gaza city clinic, after being injured during a food distribution in Zikim on 25 July:

"I tried to go on Thursday 24 July to Zikim to get flour, I waited there all night, but I got nothing.

On Friday I decided to try again, my father did not want me to go because last time I went, I saw many people dead from the shelling and shooting from tanks. But we have 10 people in my family so I went without telling them.

As the trucks entered, at first they drove very fast but then they slowed down for the big crowd, when the trucks turned, some of the 50kg bags of flour fell off, injuring people. The Israeli forces forced the driver to keep going, despite there being people all around him. The driver tried to reverse the truck to leave the area, but it was so crowded that people were hit. There were seven other young men with me, they were all killed when the truck reversed. I was sitting down with my legs in front of me, one leg was itching, so I pulled it in, and that is the only reason why only one of my legs was run over by the truck.

A woman came to help me, she took a shawl to stop the bleeding, but she could not carry me. I saw a friend and they both helped to carry me, reassuring me. At some point I lost consciousness. We could not find transport. People thought I was dying and did not want to take me in the car, until we found a tuktuk to take me to Hamad medical point. They put water on my face to keep me awake. At the medical point, they wrapped my leg with wood from a pallet and attached it with a shirt as there was no material available. At the medical point, I saw people with gunshot wounds and people who had been wounded in fights. Some people died just from the crush of the crowds.

I got injured at 5pm but I didn’t arrive at Al Shifa until 11pm. The hospital was full of patients everywhere; I had to wait until 3am for surgery.

Now that I am injured there are not many options for our family, my older brother goes around all day trying to do odd jobs, helping people carry things, trying to make some money. My father tries to rent out the car we have in order to make some money. Some days we can have some bread, other days we don’t find anything. But none of us will go back to Zikim.

What I dream about is for all this to be over and to rebuild the house and the business of my father that has been destroyed."

--ENDS--